A Philadelphia police officer and his brother were recently indicted on charges relating to a tax fraud conspiracy scheme, the federal prosecutor in eastern Pennsylvania has announced.
The office of Zane Memeger, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, announced last week that brothers Jose Tirado and Victor Tirado were charged in an indictment that was unsealed on Jan. 18 with conspiracy to defraud the federal government and other counts of false claims for their role in a tax fraud scheme.
Authorities claim that between January 2008 and March 2010, the two brothers obtained the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of various people, including children, with Jose Tirado, an officer with the Philadelphia Police Department’s 25th District, preparing federal income tax returns that falsely and fraudulently inflated earned income amounts in order to obtain tax refunds that included Earned Income Tax credits.
In some cases, the government claims, Jose Tirado listed false dependents on the tax returns.
Jose Tirado then filed the false income tax returns electronically with the Internal Revenue Service and directed the IRS to deposit refunds generated from the false income tax returns to one of two bank accounts.
Jose Tirado and others, both known and unknown to the grand jury investigating the scheme, received tax refunds issued by the IRS that were generated because of the false tax returns, with a total of $507,974 in false claims submitted, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
If convicted on all counts, Jose Tirado faces a maximum prison sentence of 80 years, restitution of $407,787.94, a fine of up to $3.75 million, and up to five years of supervised release.
Victor Tirado faces a maximum prison sentence of 25 years, up to five years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $1,000.
Phila. police officer, brother charged by feds with tax fraud conspiracy scheme
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